


Morpheus Blessed

by doughts



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, FTM, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 08:32:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doughts/pseuds/doughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for a Tamora Pierce challenge.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Morpheus Blessed

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a Tamora Pierce challenge.

     I have been at the convent for two years and the first thing I learned is that sneaking out gets easier with practice. When you’re first starting out you don’t know things like which guards will accept bribes and which ones won’t, whether you need to bribe the guards with dream dust or with coin, which stairs squeak, the patrol routes for the guards who can’t be bribed, and the general layout of the keep to avoid those sisters who have keen ears. Learning those things by rote is obviously not a possibility. 

      As eager as I am to get out, I want to keep my place as a Novice with the Sisters of Morpheus. Getting caught means getting expelled and they are the only people who will provide a girl with an education beyond basic reading and sums. The rest of the world suffers from the delusion that the ability to bear children means you don’t have a brain. Even better, the Sisters have spent many centuries studying dreams and human minds. They could teach me to become a heart healer, someone who can look into the souls of people and teach them how to make their dreams come true.

     At the same time, I have been staring at predominantly these same sixty faces for the better part of two years. I am absolutely stir-crazy. What causes me to become more mad is the fact that every single one of these people believes me to be female. This, I suppose, is a somewhat reasonable assumption on their part. As far as I can tell, at least on the outside, I am female. 

      I have not felt female my entire life, least of all when I started to develop. I always assumed that when I started to change, I would not grow breasts like my Auntie told me I would. I assumed I would turn into a boy. That did not happen and one day my aunt came home to find me attempting to burn off my breasts. 

      She rushed me off to the temple of Apollo, hoping that the burns I had already inflicted weren’t too severe and the priests would be able to heal them. With a prayer, a blessing, and a bandage wrapped over my chest, it was as if the burns had never happened. Regardless, my aunt was terrified. She sat me down on her lap when we got home, intending to talk. Instead I cried that she had interrupted me, cried that there was this intrusion into my long held belief that I was a boy and I could do nothing to rid myself of it. She rocked me, murmuring lullabies and prayers over my head until I was cried out. 

     With a shaky voice, I started explaining exactly why I was trying to burn off my chest. She softly stroked my head and told me she knew exactly what would fix me. She stood me up and placed a kiss on my forehead, settling me back in her chair. I almost immediately missed her warmth and I squeezed her hand. She told me that she would be back in just a moment and left the room. She came back with a few pieces of slightly tattered clothing. 

       “Your cousin was quite a bit bigger than you,” she said as she held out a pair of faded brown pants and a soft blue shirt, “but these look like they should fit.” I looked up at her with wide eyes. “Come over here and try them on.” I blinked a few times, not quite believing what I was seeing. Slowly I stood up and slid out of my simple dress, carefully draping it over the chair even though I wanted to crumple it up and stomp on it. I climbed into the brown pants. Sure enough, they were a little too long, but I cuffed them. Before I put on the shirt, Auntie motioned me over. She had a corset, and I balked. “No, no, come here Se-.” She smiled softly. “I suppose I shouldn’t call you that anymore. Come here and let me show you what I can do with this.” I was still suspicious, but she had brought me pants. I stepped over and she showed me how to lace the corset in a way that would hide my chest instead of enhance it. “I used to use something like this when I wanted to smuggle dream dust. People are less likely to hassle a man, no?” I smiled. It was true. I slid on the shirt and my chest was wonderfully flat. “You are a handsome boy.” She patted my back. “Now my handsome boy needs a name.” I thought about it for a minute. 

       “Colin.” To this day, I still celebrate my birthday on the day that Colin was born.

*

      When I sneak out of the abbey, I find it much easier to avoid the interior of the keep altogether. The inside guards are much less likely to accept bribes and the Sisters seem to have an intuitive sense for when Novices are trying to sneak out, regardless of how careful and stealthy we are. It’s doable but it’s much more difficult. I simply go out the window. 

       Simple is perhaps a bit of an overstatement. In order to be able to go out the window I had to get a rope and a grappling hook. The rope I stole off of a boat that was being watched by rather ribald and drunk sailors. Anyone looks like a cabin boy when you’ve had enough to drink. Hermes protects both thieves and travelers so I felt reasonably confident stealing the rope. The grappling hook was trickier. Blacksmiths keep a much closer watch on their goods than drunken sailors. Possibly because a drunk blacksmith would burn the town down and possibly because metal is far more valuable than a section of rope. Either way, it was the thought of Hephaestus that stopped me. He was notoriously vengeful and I didn’t want to anger him. Instead, I picked pockets for months, saving up change until I could afford a serviceable grappling hook. 

      Petty thievery is not really the best way to be a Novice of Morpheus, but then, most of the Novices aren’t really boys. I was beginning to suspect that Morpheus had his hand on me anyway. Seems likely, seeing as I was a person with two powerful and opposing dreams working to make them both come true. The Sisters never seemed to have the sense that I was up to no good. Whenever I was close to getting caught, it was always a guard willing to look the other way for coin or a sister who could be bluffed. It was a nice feeling, to know that my god supported me in being who I am and wanted me to achieve my dreams. It’s part of the reason why I serve Morpheus so willingly.

      As for actually getting out via the window, first I have to retrieve my grappling hook. I hide it within the wind chimes just outside of our window. They mean I get woken up at the slightest breeze, but they are the only place to hide a rather large chunk of metal. It takes all of my skill as a thief to not set them off and wake my roommate. As an extra precaution against waking up my roommate, I also pad the grappling hook with some velvet out of Auntie’s scrap bag. Some of the Novices would cover for me but she’s something of a snitch, willing to help the Sisters catch errant mischief makers. I am too stealthy for it to matter too much, although there have been occasional close calls. 

      My rope spends its days hiding as a decorative sculpture. I tell the other Novices that it was a gift from my father as a reminder of his business. I still have to prepare it before I can leave. I’m fond of sneaking out, considerably less so of dying. There is a way to tie a rope into a sort of harness so you can lower yourself down a smooth building. I got the basic idea listening to some of Auntie’s tales of smuggling dream dust and I knew enough knots that it wasn’t difficult to rig something up. Unsurprisingly, my nightgown was not designed to work well with a makeshift rope harness used for climbing up and down abbey walls. I have to wear it against the bare skin of my legs and it chafes something awful. It’s not comfortable but it functions.

     Snug and secure in my harness, I practically fly down the wall, well-practiced after nearly a year of sneaking out my window. I slip out of the harness, leaving it tied so I can get back up in a hurry later, and hide it under a nearby bush. Bushes are so useful for crooked folk. It is dark enough that no one will notice the slight difference in color between the rope and the keep wall, for which I can only be thankful. Paint to hide the color would flake off and need to be reapplied, making it a giant pain in my rump. Throwing the grappling hook, while possible in an emergency, is also more than a bit noisy and risky. I’ve only ever done it once and I would like to never, ever repeat the experience. 

      The guard at the gate gets his usual coin in order to let me out and I am relieved that pick pocketing has allowed me to bribe them in coin instead of drugging them with stolen dream dust. Coin is easier for one, because dream dust is difficult and tedious to steal. I also feel somewhat odd about leaving the guards dreaming on duty. It has been a century since anyone has dared to attack the Sisters, dream dust making for a very effective weapon, but I still feel off about leaving our protectors unable to actually protect. Dreaming guards are also much easier to notice and I don’t need to be any more obvious. It is something of a miracle that I haven’t been discovered. Thankfully, it is apparently quite common for the guards to accept bribes to let girls out. Some people feel it is unfair to keep the girls locked away from the rest of the world, unable to have any adventures or mischief. It takes years to be initiated and that is a long time cut off from the outside world, especially when girls are supposed to be finding young love. The guard probably assumes I am seeing a gentleman suitor, although that thought makes me gag more than a bit. Outside the gate, I am free and it is amazing. 

*

     Like most of the good things in my life, I have Auntie to thank for my current freedom. When my father first suggested that I become a Novice to broaden his trade contacts, she was amazed that I considered accepting. She talked to me long and hard about what it would mean to give up the boyhood that we’ve kept hidden from my father. If he had known about my boyish inclinations, he might not have suggested that I become a Novice. Now that the suggestion had been made, now that I had a chance to seize my dream and become a heart healer, I was going to take it. Even if it means giving up something that quite possibly means even more.

      “I’m worried about my Colin,” she told me over the tea she made. “I don’t want to lose you, and you know what being a girl does to you.” I still don dresses when my father is in town and without fail I am depressed and angry until several days after he leaves. 

      “If I am a heart healer I won’t have to rely on anyone to get by in the world. I want to make enough money when I am grown to insure that I can remain a boy my whole life and not need to marry anyone to avoid starving. Having a way to make money is the only sure fire way I can say who I am. And I’m afraid to go to a boy’s school.” My voice lowers to a whisper as I admit my fear. She thinks me so courageous and I don’t want to ruin her image of me. “What if they found out?” My aunt’s face immediately softens and she cannot resist getting up to hug me tight. She sits and pulls me down into her lap. Her acceptance feels too good to turn down, even if I am a bit large to fit now. 

      “I’ve made you a safe place here, but you’re right to be afraid.” Auntie was an imposing presence and no one wants to mess with a member of the Pond clan, not when she might hear about it. I was Colin Pond, one of her many nephews and no one ever doubted her. She looks down at me sadly as she rubs my back. “There are people in this world that would hurt you. But I know that you will hurt you if you can’t be who you are.” I bury my head in her neck to hide my shame. “Oh Mijo, there is no shame in needing to be who you are.” Try as I might to persuade her otherwise, Auntie would never tell me when she learned Spanish. Probably smuggling dream dust. Either way, every time she called me Mjio, my son, it made me feel warm inside. Auntie filled the void my mother left when she took off for parts unknown. I called her Tia, aunt, in response sometimes. I couldn’t bring myself to call her Mama after the last person who held that title left. 

     “But I don’t want to lose my handsome boy. So I tell you what. Every month, on the full moon… Yes, the full moon, let’s be poetic about it. Why don’t you sneak out,” here I looked at her in shock. “Oh you know I’m not law abiding Mijo, don’t look at me like that. Why don’t you sneak out and I will leave some clothes for you under your castle.” I knew exactly which of her carefully tended shrubs she was talking about. “That way, you’ll have some time to play, no?” I nodded. Auntie had a solution for everything and my heart was less heavy about becoming a Novice. 

    It is Auntie and not my father who drops me off at the abbey with my small trunk. She takes the small tour offered to family and helps me unpack after the Sisters have searched my things thoroughly. When it is time for her to go, she hugs me tightly and whispers in my ear. 

      “Be brave Mijo.” As she leaves she slips me a few coins that she smuggled in despite careful searching by the guards. Always full of surprises, my Tia. 

  
  


*

  
  


      The path into town is one I know by heart and I fly down it, running as fast as I can. I resist the urge to laugh in delight at my freedom, outside and away from the watchful eye of the Sisters. I am out of breath before I make it to Auntie’s house and end up walking the rest of the way, like always. Even though I have had plenty of time to cool down, my heart is hammering from excitement when I get there. There is the usual small pile of clothes hidden behind one of her bushes. There are a few coins as well, although I won’t take those. There is a love note to her Mijo in the pocket of the pants that I will put with the rest of them in a box I burry under the hedge. These notes are the most precious thing I own.

      I carefully unfold and shake dust off of Colin’s clothes. In order to protect my modesty I change in the same hollow that made this bush a perfect castle for two young boys. It is a bit tricky and cramped, but I manage and when I emerge from behind the bush I have my boyish swagger. It is a swagger I have had all my life, one that I have to consciously suppress while I am cloistered with the other Novices. 

      I head to the tavern, noting my good fortune when I come across a drunk with a full purse. I take a few coins, the unofficial penalty for being sloppy in public. Every morally flexible fellow who comes across him will take a coin or two, hoping to make the lesson of not drinking beyond what you are able stick. It is the sort of thievery I feel the least guilty about, aside from those so rich they won’t notice. 

      Finally there, I walk into the tavern. As I am greeted warmly by many of the regulars, I am reminded of my reasons to steal. It is an utter relief to see new faces and familiar smiles both, faces different from the Sisters, Novices, and guards. I smile and stride over to the counter, pulling out a handkerchief to hide my placement of a small, tightly tied bag of dream dust on the counter. I have been carefully gathering the occasional grain left on the alter or blessing bowls for nearly two months in order to build up an amount that Jack the barman would be willing to buy. My effort is worth it as he shoves a pile of around thirty coins across the counter. Except for one, I hide them securely in places that will foil all but the best pick pockets. I am far too poor to attract their notice, so my money will be safe. 

      The coin in my hand is payment to arm wrestle my friend and occasional enemy Julian. He told me one day that if a scrawny mouse of a thing like me ever beat him in a test of strength he would hand over his best dagger. It was a challenge I couldn’t resist and I have spent many coins trying to win that blade. This time the joke will be on him. I watched the guards out of the library window while they were exercising one day and I have been copying many of the movements that strengthen arms. Though the abbey might not have much room to build wind or endurance, I have more than enough space in my room with the snitch to build up the muscles in my arms. 

      It doesn’t take me long to slam his hand into the table and it is clear that all of the exercise paid off. I smile smugly at him. Julian grumbles but makes good on his word and hands over the dagger on his belt. I know for a fact it isn’t the best that he owns, but it is a fine blade which makes it more than good enough for me. The goal wasn’t even necessarily to win the blade but to beat a true lad in a contest of strength. Coins two and three go to buying a quality leather belt for my blade from the tannery next door to the tavern. Even though I will only be able to wear it a few days out of every month, I love the feel of the supple leather and the way the dagger looks around my waist. It is something purely Colin and I have so few of those things that I cannot resist. I go back to show Julian, and when he has had enough of my strutting he asks me for a rematch, saying I can keep the dagger even if I lose. For that, I slam his hand to the table two more times. After the second time he tells me that I should go off and see my flower seller before the rest of his dignity disappears. 

     I am terribly excited to see my flower seller, a lovely girl by the name of Annabeth. She and I have a bit of a romance. We kiss, cuddle, go for walks, and stay up late watching the stars and talking. We never do anything more physical for somewhat obvious reasons. She thinks me Colin and fully male and I never want her to think of me as anything else. We talk for hours, standing by her wares. The smell is wonderful, a garden fit for the gods. She studies under the Farmers of Demeter and the results show in her flowers. We talk until I know that I have to go or I won’t be able to sneak back into the abbey in time for a dream. My fourth coin of the evening goes to buying a lavish bouquet of her flowers, both thanks for the evening and because I wanted to share their beauty with my aunt. 

     I got so caught up with Annabeth that I have to run all the way back to my aunt’s house. I change back into my nightgown in the cramped hollow of the bush, leaving the bouquet of flowers and a coin along with a note asking my aunt to please look after my new dagger. I know she will wonder, but she trusts me and I am not allowed weapons as a Novice. I run the whole way back to the abbey due to the time and it is a little painful, though the pain is well worth it for the evening I had. I am still panting as the guard accepts his bribe to open the gate and let me in. By the time I haul myself back up my rope my arms are tired and shaky. I have never longed to see my bed so much even though I will only get a few hours of sleep. As a reward for not sneaking in with the sun I allow myself the treat of a single grain of dream dust. I breathe it in and fall asleep instantly, with dreams that smell of gardens fit for gods. I am Colin, fully and truly, able to do more than just kiss. I am a spirit healer, someone who aids people in the quest to make their dreams come true. I dream of being Colin when I am grown, a man and a spirit healer both and I dream that someday I won’t have to give up one of my loves in order to live the other.


End file.
